After Android 4.0, Ice Cream Sandwich was launched last fall, many MIUI fans left the gorgeous MIUI ROM for a more vanilla Android feel. Besides the new Holo theme being very cut and clean, MIUI just wasn’t stable enough to be used as a daily driver for many MIUI veterans, including myself.
Xiaomi hopes to fill the void for those of us that returned to ICS from MIUI and are missing true customization and theming that the ROM offers. The MiHome Launcher application offers a complete set of customization options like no other launcher. You can change your transition effects, wallpapers, icons, and even customize the look and feel of your lockscreen via the included MiLOCKER feature. MiLOCKER allows you to style your lockscreen via a plethora of customizations bringing the true MIUI feel to any Android 4.0 ICS device.
After you have saved the APK to your device, proceed to install it as any application. The first time you hit the Home button on your device, it may take the launcher a few moments to load, after that you should be fine. Many people love the default MIUI theme. Many people also hate it, describing it as iOS for Android. If you don’t like the default theme, my recommendation is to immediately select themes and start downloading and customizing until your heart is content. If you aren’t a fan of the lack of an app drawer, feel free to drop a folder on the icon dock and put apps inside the folder.
At this time there is a small snippet of Chinese text on the lockscreen. The MIUI developers are aware of this and have assured us on the next release this will be resolved.
Please note, at this time this launcher is only for Android 4.0 devices. They are working on bringing this launcher to Android 2.3 in the future.